9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Crowd cheering and clapping hands...) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you..... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Crowd cheering continues... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you.... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you so much.. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you.. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To ........................ and the Mandela family.. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To President Zuma and the members of the government, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to heads of states and goverment, past and present,distinguished guests.. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is a singular honour to be with you today to celebrate a life like no other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To the people of South Africa,... ( Crowd cheering) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people of every ways and every walk of life, the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 His struggle was your struggle. His triumph was your triumph. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Your dignity and your hope found expression in his life and your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is hard to eulogize any man, to capture words, not just the facts and the dates that make a life but the essential truth of a person, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your private joys and sorrows, the quiet moments and the unique qualities that illuminates someones soul. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how much harder to do so for a giant of his .....who moved the nation towards justice 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and in the process moved billions around the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Born during world war I, fired from the quarters of power, a boy raised by the cattle and the tutored by................. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But if I would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century,like I knew he would lead a resistance movement, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a movement that at it start had little prospect for success. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like Dr King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He would not do a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and khrushchev and reached the final days of the cold war. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Emerging from the prison without the force of arms he would, like Abraham Lincoln hold this country together ...........break apart. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and like America's founding fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A commitment to the democracy and rule of law, ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power after only one term. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ( crowd cheeing... continues) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Given the sweep of his life, the scope of his accomplishments,the adoration that he is .......earlier, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it is tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men but my .....himself strongly persistant such a lifeless fortune. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Crowd cheering.......) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Instead, Mandela insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears, his miscalculations along with his victories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "I am not a saint", he said unless you think I am a saint as a setter who keeps on trying. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those precisely because he could admit to imperfection. because it could be so full of good humor, even........ 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 despite the heavy burdens that he carried that we loved him solve. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He was not a bust made of ......., he was a man of flesh and blood, a son and a husband, a father and a friend. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's why we learnt so much from him and that's why we can learn from him still, for nothing he achieved was inevitable. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the arch of his life, we see a man owned his place in history through his struggle and shrewdness and persistence and faith. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books but in our own minds as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Mandela showed us the power of action and taking risk on behalf of our ideas. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Perhaps Mandela was right that he inherited a proud rebelliousness,a stubborn sense of fairness from his father.